


Of Cat Mugs and Marshmallows

by djinndreaming



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djinndreaming/pseuds/djinndreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Louis works at a coffee shop and Harry does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Cat Mugs and Marshmallows

The coffee shop where Louis works is never busy. There's never a line, and most of the customers they get are regulars, and Louis knows most of their orders off by heart. It's small and quaint, with mismatched overstuffed armchairs and a few secondhand novels strewn over the tables. It's a small-town coffee shop in a small town, and while it can get a bit dull sometimes, Louis kind of loves it a lot.

He's on shift with Niall, whose parents own the shop, when the boy walks in the door for the first time. It's raining, and the store is completely deserted when the bell above the door jingles merrily and a soppy, cardiganed mess tumbles inside.

“Bit wild out there,” he says, and Louis watches as he pushes a mop of sodden curls off his forehead. The boy smiles ruefully, and Louis' breath catches in his throat.

Beside Louis, Niall jumps into helpful action. “I'll get you a towel,” he says, darting into the back room and returning a moment later with a handful of tea towels. “These'll have to do 'm afraid.”

The boy accepts them gratefully and begins to dry himself, rubbing at his hair and chest and thighs and wringing the hem of his shirt out onto the spongy mat at his feet, there for this exact purpose. Louis busies himself with cleaning the pastry display, watching the boy out of the corner of his eye and flushing slightly when he catches glimpses of hipbones and bare planes of stomach.

Niall kicks his ankle. Louis looks up into his smirking face, but before he can flush further, Niall announces, “I'm going on my break,” and glances meaningfully between Louis and the boy at the door before meandering into the break room. Louis goes back to cleaning, and doesn't look at the boy. That lasts for several minutes, before -

“I'll wash these,” a voice says, and Louis looks into the warm gaze of the boy, who is now standing directly in front of the counter. “I'll wash them and bring them back.”

Louis hastily tries to collect himself. “Don't worry about it,” he blurts, “honestly. I'll just toss them in with the rest of the laundry.”

The boy pouts, and Louis resolutely does not think about the fucking stupidly perfect cupid's bow of his lips. “Well, at least let me buy something. I can't go empty handed when I've made a complete mess of your store.”

Louis raises his eyebrow. “Yes, how dare you. Look at all the customers I'll have to ignore now just to clean up your mess.”

The boy looks around the store, laughing, and the sound of it sits warm in Louis' belly. He's handsome, with pale skin and brown curls and eyes that shine with mirth. Louis can't stop looking at him.

“So what can I get you?” he asks, instead of crawling over the counter and sucking a mark into the customer's neck. “You don't really look like a coffee drinker, if I'm going to be honest.”

“Guilty,” the boy says, laughing again. “A hot chocolate would be lovely, though. Name's Harry.”

Louis writes the order down on a cup. “I don't think the order is going to get mixed up with anyone else's,” he says dryly, reaching for the milk.

“I know,” the boy – Harry – says cheerfully. “I just thought if I told you my name, you might tell me yours.”

Louis ducks his head and grins as he pours chocolate into Harry's cup. “Louis,” he says, unable to stifle his smile. “My name is Louis.”

“It's good to meet you, Louis,” Harry replies. Faintly, Louis can hear Niall's snort from the break room. He chooses to ignore it in favour of smiling at Harry, who smiles back at him, over the sound of foaming milk.

It doesn't take long to complete Harry's order. He drops two marshmallows into the drink for free, and is rewarded with a happy sound from Harry's side of the counter as he watches. Louis hands the drink over, though not before drawing a dumb looking smiley face on the side of the cup (which makes Harry light up and also look slightly like a baby deer, and Louis tries not to dwell on how the word 'adorable' comes straight to his mind), and takes the money that Harry hands him in return.

“Cheers,” Harry says, sipping happily. He doesn't move away from the counter. Louis cleans the frother wand.

“Have you worked here long?” Harry asks, after a moment. Louis nods.

“About a year. It's mostly the same people that come in, though, and I've not seen you here before...” he trails off.

Harry licks chocolate powder off the top of his lip before answering. “No, you wouldn't've. I go to the uni a couple of miles away. I'm visiting my aunt for the holidays.”

Louis knows the university he's talking about. A few of his friends go there, but once they've left the little town where they've lived their entire lives, they don't usually return. As far as he knows, they're all glad to have left, and seem to be settling quite comfortably into the city life.

“I have friends there,” Louis says finally. “What're you studying?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “English education,” he admits. “I was inspired by that Robin Williams movie – you know, the one about the dead poets? - and applied before I remembered that I probably wouldn't ever get good students like that. I was a little shit in high school, and I can imagine it coming back around to bite me in the arse. I won't get any students standing on their desks calling me their captain. They'll probably throw their desks out the window.”

Louis laughs. “You can always put bars on the window,” he says, and Harry nods like he's seriously considering it.

“Now there's a thought!” he exclaims. “You're a genius, Louis.”

Louis bows slightly. “Always here to help.”

Harry leans on the counter on his elbows, holding his hot chocolate in front of his face. “I appreciate it,” he says, smiling. “I could do with a genius in my life, considering I am clearly not one.” He tilts his head towards the slowly shrinking puddle of water on the entrance mat.

Louis waves his hand. “Happens to the best of us, I'm sure.” He takes a breath. “But in any case,” he continues, “I volunteer for the position.”

He realises after he's said it that it sounds like a particularly brazen come-on, but he finds himself not really caring. It's not every day that a beautiful boy turns up on his doorstep soaking wet. He's allowed to make an idiot of himself, despite feeling like he's just ruined any chance he's ever had of even being Harry's friend.

Harry looks at him intently over the rim of his mug (which is shaped like a cat and doesn't at all match the saucer it came on) for several moments. He doesn't say anything, just lifts the mug to his lips and drinks the rest of his hot chocolate in one go.

“Hmm,” he says, not taking his eyes off Louis. He hands the mug back over, brushing Louis' fingers with his own. Louis tries not to shiver.

“You're hired,” Harry says suddenly. “See you around, Louis!”

And with that, he walks to the door. He turns before he leaves, throwing Louis a blinding grin that makes the corner of his eyes crinkle with cheerful mirth, and Louis finds himself smiling in return. The bell jingles, Harry steps outside, and then he's gone.

Louis doesn't really know what just happened, if he's honest. There's a shuffling behind him before Niall returns.

“Did you get his number?” he asks. “Louis, I swear to God -”

“He stole your tea towels,” Louis says mildly, taking the cat mug to the sink and dropping it in the soapy water. He can't wipe the smile off his face for the rest of the day.

–

Harry does come back, actually – the next day, at the same time, carrying an umbrella and a paper bag, which he gives to Louis.

“I told you I'd wash them,” he says, as Louis peers inside the bag to find the tea towels Harry had nicked yesterday. Louis raises an eyebrow.

“I also told you that _I_ would wash them,” he says, and Harry grins unapologetically.

“I was being helpful, Louis, don't reprimand me.” He waits until Louis comes back from putting them away to add, “Also, I need one of those hot chocolates again. And it definitely needs to be in the same mug, because I don't think it would taste the same otherwise.”

Louis grins and reaches for the things he needs for Harry's drink. “It doesn't,” Louis says, grabbing the cat mug. “I've tried. It tastes completely awful in a normal mug.”

Harry nods sagely. “I thought so.”

There's a lady sitting in one of the chairs in the corner, absorbed in an e-reader, and an elderly man flicking through a book on whale photography at a table near her, but otherwise, Louis and Harry are as good as alone.

The time passes quickly, the two of them talking and laughing. Harry asks Louis what he does when he's not slaving away at the Horan's coffee shop (“Er,” Louis says awkwardly, “I sing. A bit. Just like – you know. It passes the time.”) and about his family. He looks very interested with everything that Louis says, and Louis flushes slightly with the attention, but it's nice to have someone to talk to who isn't one of the regulars.

Not that Harry is regular, in any sense of the word.

He has a knack of not letting there be any awkward silences in their conversation. He fills them with anecdotes, usually about his university room-mate, whose name is Zayn, and who apparently has a lot of hilarious escapades with quite a few of the females on their campus. Or he asks Louis mundane questions, like whether he prefers coffee or tea (he replies with coffee, and Harry hisses at him. “Barbarian,” he says. “And you call yourself an Englishman.” Then he laughs, and his marshmallow topples sadly out of his jostled mug. Louis gives him another.).

Louis rather likes him a lot.

–

It becomes a habit, after that. Harry comes in every day at nearly the same time, orders a hot chocolate in the cat mug, and stands at the counter and talks to Louis for hours. Louis' only other friend in the town is Niall, and Niall is usually either working with him behind the counter and nudging him closer to Harry, or gallivanting around the town doing all sorts of ridiculous things when things are really, really quiet. Louis doesn't mind. It means he gets to talk to Harry without Niall popping up behind Harry and making lewd and obscene hand gestures which Louis tries to ignore.

They've been doing this for more than two weeks when Harry scratches absently at his cheek and says, “You know, the university isn't that far away from here.”

Louis nods. “Yeah, it's good. There's a bus that goes straight there from the middle of town. It takes like, half an hour at most.”

Harry hums, looking down into his mug. His words put a tiny hole in Louis' little happy bubble though, because he realises that once Harry goes back to school, he definitely won't see him every day. Louis deflates.

“I'll,” he begins, but something catches in his throat. He clears it. “I'll miss you. When you go back.”

Harry goes weirdly lax while he's hunched over his mug – he inhales deeply and then lets it rush out, like he's steeling himself for something, and then he says, “I'd like it if you came to visit. I mean, obviously – obviously I'd visit you too, and then you could come and visit me and I could show you around the university – though you probably already... You could visit your other friends while you're there, of course, and I'd be there too, so it'd be like hitting two birds with one stone. Or you could just, you know. Visit me. And I'd visit you. Because.” He turns bright red and stares fixedly into the depths of his cat mug, which he's gripping so tightly his knuckles are turning white.

Louis doesn't really know what he's supposed to do here, so he replies with breathless, reckless abandon. “You realise you're the only one actually worth visiting, right?” he says – and then, gripping tight to the edge of the counter and hoping he's reading Harry's embarrassment correctly, he adds, “Besides, I'm not going to have any time to visit anyone else when I'm spending all my time making out with you in your dorm room.”

Harry jerks up, staring at Louis searchingly. Louis just looks back, a desperate, hopeful feeling lodged in his chest. Whatever it is that Harry's looking for – honesty, probably – he must find, because he blurts, “Oh, thank God,” and nudges his mug out of the way in order to grab Louis by the chest of his apron and pull him into a kiss over the counter.

He tastes like chocolate and marshmallows and he kisses like he's been desperate for it for weeks, which, if he's anything like Louis, he very well may have been. His lips are soft and his mouth opens so easily when Louis runs his tongue along the seam of them, licking inside and sucking gently on Harry's lower lip. Harry moans and Louis swallows it, locks the sound deep inside him where he can remember it forever with the label _this is the sound Harry made when we kissed for the first time_. It's probably the best sound Louis has ever heard, and it's a heady rush when he realises that they will get to do this again, and again, and other things too - other things that will make Harry moan. Louis gasps with the thought, a jolt of arousal surging through him, and he can feel it when Harry grins into the kiss.

Eventually, they break apart, and just stand there smiling stupidly at each other. Harry doesn't let go of Louis' apron. Niall walks in the front door with a tinkling of the bell and wanders past them.

“I called this shit from the beginning,” he says, and continues out the back. Harry and Louis ignore him.

“So,” Harry says eventually, “does this mean you're going to come and visit me?”

Louis reaches over and tucks his hand over Harry's hip, dipping his pinky under his cardigan and resting it on bare skin. “Yes,” he says. Harry's lips are red and swollen from kissing, and he's still grinning at Louis.

“I'll even bring the cat mug.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can read this fic in Russian here! -> [http://ficbook.net/readfic/1131349]


End file.
